The Lower Courtyard
The castle's courtyard, which is today the most important part in terms of visitor traffic. It houses the ticket office and the entrance to the building management. This courtyard also has several relics of a bygone era.
The two Renaissance portals in this courtyard date from the Renaissance reconstruction period. Above the entrances we can see the coat of arms of Albrecht Václav Smiřický of Smiřice in the left parts. The coats of arms on the right side are empty and indicate that the lord of the castle was not married.
The southern wall of the courtyard is decorated with a Renaissance sgraffito, again from the Smiřický of Smiřice phase. The date is documented by the initials of a member of the Smiřický family above the windows to the box office. However, the sgraffito is a copy from the 1970s, when the grounds of the Náchod castle were undergoing reconstruction and the original sgraffito was either covered or completely replaced. The original example of the sgraffito is located just above the windows to the ticket office.
A small clock tower was also built during the Renaissance reconstruction. In later Baroque modifications it acquired a metal onion-shaped roof with a hexagonal top, a wooden dome and a weathervane. The tower houses a non-functioning Baroque clockwork. Two early 18th century cymbals strike the current time.